In these two thousand days, Dan Jixiang refreshed our understanding of the Forbidden City almost every day:
He let the Forbidden City enter the general public's field of vision from the mysterious historical altar, and created the precedent for the programs of the Forbidden City to become online celebrities. Two programs, "I am repairing cultural relics in the Forbidden City" and "National Treasures", both got high scores above 9.0 in Douban.
He wore out more than 20 pairs of cloth shoes and covered every corner of the Forbidden City with his feet, which made us know the amazing figures of the Forbidden City for the first time: 937 1 house, 1, 862690 cultural relics;
He let netizens see the scissors hand of the concubine and the clumsy dance of the emperor, and let everyone know that the Forbidden City can also have a lovely side;
……
When I finished reading "I am repairing cultural relics in the Forbidden City", I couldn't help sighing in my heart. So the Forbidden City is like this! Thank Dan Jixiang for letting me know the Forbidden City again!
Just like re-understanding the Forbidden City, we often encounter moments of refreshing our cognition in our lives. From a psychological point of view, this is because we humans have the illusion of knowledge.
As yuval harari, the author of A Brief History Today, said, "Everyone actually knows very little, but we think we know a lot." Therefore, Herari wrote an article recommending the book The Illusion of Knowledge.
The Illusion of Knowledge was written by two American cognitive psychologists, Steven sloman and Philip Fernbach. In this book, they explain why people still make wrong decisions under rational circumstances.
Zhihu has two issues of great concern: one is "Why is it so common that' the truth is understood but the execution is poor'?" ;
The other is "why do some people seem to know everything, but in fact they have accomplished nothing?"
These two questions can be answered by "the illusion of knowledge".
Hallucination is a false perception.
So what is the illusion of knowledge?
Looking back, have you had an epiphany recently? I see. Why is it different from what I thought before?
This is the illusion of knowledge. To put it simply, you think you know, but in fact you have only a little knowledge. This kind of cognitive dislocation of knowledge can be seen everywhere in our lives.
For example, the toilets, zippers and bicycles we often use feel familiar, but if you explain how these things work, you will find that you don't understand and can't make it clear.
For another example, we all feel familiar with Tang poetry, but if you really recite it, how many poems can you recite completely and accurately?
The illusion of knowledge spreads in all aspects of people's cognition and often misleads our decisions.
1) thinking that you know but don't know often misleads our decision.
For helping children with their homework, we all feel that others dare not say it well, and we always know what is said in primary school Chinese. But it may also be an illusion of your knowledge.
Once when I was correcting my child's homework, I saw the word "sesame paste", and the child marked it with four tones (hù). I said this is not right, it is two.
The child said unconvinced, "It's four tones, which the teacher said today." I looked it up on the internet, and the result was really four tones.
Laozi and Han Feizi also said that "man knows himself". Ignorance is not terrible, but self-righteous ignorance is the most terrible.
2) Overestimating the understanding of things and not realizing the complexity of things is another reason for misleading our decision.
The Battle of Feishui is a famous example in the history of China. At that time, Zhao Xuan Fu Jian, the former emperor of the Qin Dynasty, mobilized more than 900,000 troops to March eastward. Facing his numerous armies, he confidently said: "What southerners rely on is only the risk of the Yangtze River. As long as our army throws the whip into the water, it will be enough to block the flow of the river! "
Fu Jian only saw the appearance of being outnumbered, but ignored other factors that decided the outcome of the war, such as human factors and tactical factors. As a result, at the battle of water, Fu Jian was defeated and the dynasty was destroyed.
Overconfidence in one's knowledge of war and simplification of complex things are defeated in tactics and even more in the illusion of knowledge.
In the book "The Illusion of Knowledge", the author thinks that we can eliminate the illusion of knowledge and improve our decision-making quotient by boosting method.
What is the boosting method? For example, if a fence is installed at the ticket gate of the station, people who buy tickets will queue up, and the phenomenon of queue jumping will be basically eliminated, because in public places, few people will jump over the fence to jump in line; But without this fence, it would be easy to jump the queue.
This is the boosting method, which uses behavioral science to push people to make decisions. In other words, it is to change the environment and help people make choices more easily.
There are four boosting methods:
First, reduce complexity. For example, it is the way to reduce the complexity to write some difficult books in the vernacular that everyone can understand and make the contents of the books concise and clear.
Second, simple decision-making rules. For example, if a bank recommends a wealth management product to you, they will not introduce you to the complicated income principle, but directly tell you the income ratio to simplify your decision.
Third, immediate education. For example, if you need to speak in public, you can find relevant books before the speech. Modern people, the division of knowledge field is too fine, everyone can't be all-rounder, so a lot of knowledge and skills are used together with learning, which is very efficient.
Fourth, check the existing cognition. The first three are external boosting, so this last method is our internal boosting. We can't avoid "knowledge illusion", but we should be alert to "knowledge illusion", be curious about the unknown, get information at any time, check our existing knowledge of things, and be careful of the influence of knowledge illusion on our decision-making.
In the conclusion of this book, the author writes: Ignorance is inevitable and illusion is valuable.
Life is a one-way trip with no turning back. In this journey, there will always be a fork in the road, and we need to make a choice.
Standing at the fork in the road of life, ability is very important, but it is more important to keep alert of "knowledge may be an illusion", get more information, check your own cognition, and think twice before you act, so as to make better decisions and embrace a better life.